David Stern: Overseas Option a Threat to Players, Not NBA

Publicly speaking, anyway, David Stern isn’t worried about NBA players temporarily going overseas to earn a few bucks. If anything, he believes they’re only (potentially) hurting themselves and the players’ union. From the AP: “The NBA Commissioner dismissed the notion that it’s a bargaining tactic, warning it could divide the union and possibly jeopardize players’ contracts if they were to be seriously injured. Locked out by the league, numerous players have said they would consider playing overseas. Yet Stern tells The Associated Press there are ‘maybe 10, 15, even 20 players who might, might be able to secure employment, but nothing approaching the NBA system. there’s simply no way that the players collectively can generate more than a couple of hundred million dollars and we have a system that has been delivering $2 billion to them … I think if anything, I think there’s simply no way that the players collectively can generate more than a couple of hundred million dollars and we have a system that has been delivering $2 billion to them,’ Stern said Tuesday in a phone interview. ‘And in fact it threatens to do two things. It threatens to split the union because only the high-paying stars, only the superstars, will be able to get any significant number of dollars, and those dollars are so small compared to what they’re leaving on the table in the U.S. that it just means they’re going to be making a few more dollars than the non-superstars, and I think it’s going to split the union. So I’m not a big fan of it, but not because it’s a threat, but because it subjects our players to unnecessary risk and treats them disparately.'”